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OK this is my first ever report. So here goes nothing...
Cookridge Convalescent Hospital was opened in 1869 to provide a place for patients who had been treated at Leeds General Infirmary to continue their recovery.
The 10,000 cost of the original building, designed in a Gothic vernacular style, was met by a donation from John Metcalfe Smith, of Beckett's Bank in Leeds.
The site was chosen in the then-remote district of Cookridge "where patients could be cheered up among the bracken and pure air", as a contemporary report noted.
Patients paid for their own care if they could afford it but there were free places available thanks to donations from benefactors – three weeks convalescence cost around eight shillings a week.
People cared for at Cookridge had to conform to a list of rules – not changed until 1934 – including "to be obedient to Matron and to perform all such services in the house and grounds as she may appoint".
Over the years the convalescent hospital was gradually extended, and during the First World War the building was requisitioned to care for wounded servicemen, resuming its civilian role after 1919.
In 1939 it was again taken over by the Government and briefly housed the Leeds Maternity Hospital.
Experiments using radium against cancer started on a small scale in Leeds as early as 1929 but Cookridge did not concentrate on cancer for another 20 years when it was acquired by the Leeds Regional Hospital Board.
Officials quickly recommended it should be developed as a regional radiotherapy centre harnessing the latest technology – a plan which required considerable adaptation of the original convalescent hospital plus a number of new buildings which were constructed on the site during the 1950s and 1960s.
The relative isolation of Cookridge from population centres was a key factor in its choice – following widespread air raids on Britain during the Second World War, there was concern about future bombing and the potential dangers from the escape of the radioactive materials used in high-dose radiotherapy treatment for cancer.
Despite the cramped and increasingly-outdated buildings, it continued to be at the forefront of the development of new technology and pioneering better treatments with improved survival rates.
The 20-acre Cookridge site is expected to sell for 13m amid plans to build more than 250 houses on about half the area, which includes three Victorian and Edwardian listed properties. Landscaped areas including Ireland Wood will remain untouched
Cookridge Convalescent Hospital was opened in 1869 to provide a place for patients who had been treated at Leeds General Infirmary to continue their recovery.
The 10,000 cost of the original building, designed in a Gothic vernacular style, was met by a donation from John Metcalfe Smith, of Beckett's Bank in Leeds.
The site was chosen in the then-remote district of Cookridge "where patients could be cheered up among the bracken and pure air", as a contemporary report noted.
Patients paid for their own care if they could afford it but there were free places available thanks to donations from benefactors – three weeks convalescence cost around eight shillings a week.
People cared for at Cookridge had to conform to a list of rules – not changed until 1934 – including "to be obedient to Matron and to perform all such services in the house and grounds as she may appoint".
Over the years the convalescent hospital was gradually extended, and during the First World War the building was requisitioned to care for wounded servicemen, resuming its civilian role after 1919.
In 1939 it was again taken over by the Government and briefly housed the Leeds Maternity Hospital.
Experiments using radium against cancer started on a small scale in Leeds as early as 1929 but Cookridge did not concentrate on cancer for another 20 years when it was acquired by the Leeds Regional Hospital Board.
Officials quickly recommended it should be developed as a regional radiotherapy centre harnessing the latest technology – a plan which required considerable adaptation of the original convalescent hospital plus a number of new buildings which were constructed on the site during the 1950s and 1960s.
The relative isolation of Cookridge from population centres was a key factor in its choice – following widespread air raids on Britain during the Second World War, there was concern about future bombing and the potential dangers from the escape of the radioactive materials used in high-dose radiotherapy treatment for cancer.
Despite the cramped and increasingly-outdated buildings, it continued to be at the forefront of the development of new technology and pioneering better treatments with improved survival rates.
The 20-acre Cookridge site is expected to sell for 13m amid plans to build more than 250 houses on about half the area, which includes three Victorian and Edwardian listed properties. Landscaped areas including Ireland Wood will remain untouched
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